4) Michael Parks
It might be hard to believe for young cinema-goers who’d never heard of Michael Parks before Tarantino cast him twice in the same film (as detective Earl McGraw in Kill Bill Vol. 1, and as gangster Esteban in Vol. 2), but Parks was once hailed as cinema’s next big thing, a kind of James Dean for 60s cinema. No shit – the great Montgomery Clift once told him he was “the best American actor.”
Sadly for Parks, after starring in the series Then Came Bronson in 1969-70, the actor was ‘blacklisted’ by a Hollywood that opposed to his anti-establishment attitude. He spent years in DTV hell.
It’s only after Tarantino (who, similar to Clift, called Parks “the world’s greatest living actor”) gave Parks the Kill Bill roles that his career has been revitalized, taking parts in The Assassination of Jesse James, Argo and other movies by Kevin Smith and, of course, Tarantino.